People

Presenters & Instructors

We have a phenomenal rosters of SketchUp aficionados lined up to present and teach at 3D Basecamp. See for yourself!

Jon Altschuld

Jon Altschuld is a registered Landscape Architect with over 10 years of experience in high-end residential design/build to large-scale landscape architecture and urban planning projects. Throughout his career, Jon has become an expert on 3D modeling and visualization. His works have been featured by the ASLA, SketchUp, Shaderlight, and multiple trade publications. Jon holds Bachelors of Landscape Horticulture and Master's of Landscape Architecture degree. Currently Jon is a Senior Landscape Architect/Project Manager for THK Associates, Inc, one of the oldest landscape architecture firms in Denver, CO.

Mike Beganyi

Mike Beganyi has wandered the world of design, woodworking, and timber-framing as a sculptor, carpenter, architecture student, instructor, barn restorer, timber framer, designer, and mover of heavy objects. He is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art and attended the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and is a former board member of the Timber Framers Guild. Mike lives and works in Vermont, pushing pixels as an independent designer focusing on heavy timber and small building design. He also enjoys teaching local craftsmen and builders how to integrate SketchUp into the design / build workflow.

Mike Brightman

Mike earned a Masters Degree in Architecture from Kent State University in Ohio. After graduating he spent several years working in architecture firms, most notably Ohlson Lavoie Collaborative in Denver, CO and Urban Studio Architects in Tampa, FL. Mike recently published The SketchUp Workflow for Architecture, outlining his proprietary techniques for leveraging SketchUp Pro during every phase of the design process. Currently, Mike is the owner of Brightman Designswhere he creates new homes and additions, drafts construction documents, develops CONDOC Tools for SketchUp, and produces 3D visualizations. Mike also travels the country to train design professionals to effectively integrate SketchUp Pro into their workflow.

Spencer Branson

Spencer Branson is an Associate Planner for the City of Fort Collins. He specializes in graphics and visualization to further the depth and understanding of current and proposed policy. He attended Colorado State University and earned a Bachelor’s in Landscape Architecture.

John Brock

John graduated from Virginia Tech with a B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1987 and has been in the construction business his entire career. For the last 21 years he has run his own custom home design/build firm. An avid 3D modeling enthusiast, John builds highly-detailed 3D models of every house he builds with the use of SketchUp and the many available extensions. These models are essentially exact replicas, down to the framing members, outlets and switches, etc. After years of frustration searching for a comprehensive estimating solution for his SketchUp models, John envisioned the desired system, created the user interface and hired a Ruby programmer to create Estimator for SketchUp, currently available on the Extension Warehouse and his online store.

Joshua Cohen

Joshua Cohen founded Fat Pencil Studio in 2004 with the idea that the world could use a little more perspective. With degrees in architecture and civil engineering, he brings an artistic flair to even the most technical projects. Joshua uses SketchUp as a visual thinking tool to help transportation, manufacturing and legal professionals craft dynamic presentations.

Matt Donley

Matt Donley is the owner of MasterSketchUp.com, the author of SketchUp to LayOut, and co-author of SketchUp and LayOut for Architecture. He has been teaching SketchUp since 2012 through his online tutorials, as well as in person training. With a background in carpentry and project engineering, he appreciates how SketchUp can be used at any level of detail and can be a flexible tool for visualizing any thought or idea.

Matthew Hoff

Matthew Hoff graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2005 with a Bachelor’s Degree in graphic design. Through an unconventional approach, he began his career in construction surveying for Mortenson’s Denver office in 2007. In 2009, Matthew transitioned into the VDC world with Mortenson as an Integrated Construction Coordinator and continued to work for Mortenson until 2014. In 2015, Matthew moved on to JE Dunn & continued his path in the Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) world. He is currently a VDC manager for JE Dunn’s Denver office.

Alex Hogrefe

Alex Hogrefe is co­founder of Design Distill, an architectural visualization office in Boston, Massachusetts producing a range of illustrations from large urban design projects to detailed interior marketing views. He is also the creator of VisualizingArchitecture.com. Through his website he engages with an online international architecture community focusing on teaching and experimenting with architectural representation techniques.

Keynote Speaker

Mike Kanoza

Mike Kanoza is a consultant with over 40 years of experience within engineering, marketing and sales. A SketchUp advocate at Steelcase, Mike has had a passion for 3D and 2D communication throughout his career.

Sebastian Kummer

Sebastian Kummer is the founder and owner of SHK. He is the inventor of the Reverse Fab Design workflow and the 3skeng extensions. His enthusiasm for engineering challenges and his full commitment to a small exclusive team is the foundation for his joy about work. He has an experience spectrum of senior roles from Project Management over Industrial- to Facility-Engineering which he gained in numerous Fab Start-up projects around the world.

Hans Lemmer

Hans Lemmer is the engineering team leader at SHK, responsible for mechanical systems including ultra-pure gases and water and HVAC. He’s gained experience in numerous high-tech engineering projects in Germany, Austria, Italy, the U.S.A. and Taiwan. The combination of his role as senior engineer and 3skeng product manager allows him to sharpen the SHK workflow from project to project.

Sebastian Barthmes

Sebastian Barthmes has studied aerospace engineering and has specialized in engineering-oriented software development and numerical simulation. On the SHK Team, he develops SketchUp extensions and contributes his expertise in fluid and gas dynamics.

Matthew Nicholls

Dr. Matthew Nicholls is a Roman historian at the University of Reading, England. He began experimenting with digital modeling to illustrate his research work on ancient library buildings. From there he moved on to make a detailed digital model of the entire city of ancient Rome, which he uses for teaching and research, has licensed to broadcasters (including the Discovery and Travel channels), and is currently making into an immersive massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). His work on bringing 3D visualization into the undergraduate curriculum at Reading has won numerous awards, and he presented on thisat 3D Basecamp in 2014.

Dave Richards

Dave Richards has been a SketchUp user and teacher for more than a decade. He uses SketchUp for a wide variety of projects from tiny medical devices to architectural projects. His primary use is drawing woodworking projects and plans for himself as well as for a number of professional woodworkers and cabinetmakers. He also draws project plans for Fine Woodworking Magazine and is a contributor to the blog Design. Click. Build. He is the author of SketchUp Guide for Woodworkers: Advanced Techniques(eBook and DVD). By day, Dave is a Biomedical Equipment Technician specializing in anesthesia, respiratory and other critical life support equipment as well as an instructor in the Mayo School of Medicine. He lives in Rochester, MN with his wife, son and two dogs.

Eric Schimelpfenig

After years of designing designing architectural millwork, furniture and cabinetry for wood shops and cabinetry showrooms, Eric Schimelpfenig founded SketchThis.netwith the goal of making it easier for designers to use technology in their businesses. Eric has an intense passion for digital fabrication and “making,” and he uses and teaches 3D printing and CNC fabrication across the country. SketchThis.NET has also developed and launched a kitchen design extension that plugs directly into SketchUp and provides a rich catalog of cabinetry and interior components so that designers can configure complex jobs in minutes. Designing kitchens and interiors used to take hours; this extension can do complex jobs in minutes.

Alex Schreyer

As Senior Lecturer and Program Director in the Building and Construction Technology and Architecture programs at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Alex Schreyer has been teaching classes in digital design, BIM (Building Information Modeling), wood properties, and building materials for over ten years to a varied audience of students and professionals coming from construction, engineering and architecture backgrounds. He is the author of Architectural Design with SketchUp (released 2015 in its second edition) and has published various extensions for SketchUp. In addition, Mr. Schreyer's background encompasses structural engineering, wood science and heavy-timber construction. He teaches and conducts research in structural wood systems and regularly speaks at national and international conferences.

Nick Sonder

Nick Sonder, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, has more than twenty-three years experience practicing as a licensed Architect in California. Nick’s work is primarily focused on custom residential design in the Sierra Mountains surrounding the Lake Tahoe region. He has been using SketchUp since 2002, adopting a complete process utilizing only SketchUp in 2007. Nick’s work with SketchUp has been well received by clients, contractors and building officials, as well as being featured on YouTube by the SketchUp team.

Kerger Truesdell

Kerger Truesdell (RA, LEED AP) spent 5+ years in architectural practice on projects representing a wide range of building types including hospitality, retail, residential, and educational work. Throughout that time, sustainability and building performance gains were always nice-to-haves, but often limited to those required by code. A frustration with this approach, and a desire to connect architects and engineers with strategic and enriching ways to grow their businesses led him to join Sefaira, where he helps guide product development and evangelize for a focus on building performance throughout all stages of design.

Daniel Tal

Daniel Tal, ASLA, is a registered landscape architect with over twenty years of experience and a 3D modeling and visualization expert. He has authored two books with Wiley and Sons: SketchUp for Site Designand Rendering in SketchUp. Tal runs a 3D modeling, visualization, and BIM studio for Stanley Consultants (a 1,000 person multi-disciplinary engineering firm), provides 3D teaching and consultations, and is the tech-editor at large for Landscape Architecture Magazine.

Keynote Speaker

Jeremy Kay

After receiving his degree in Environmental Design from the University of Colorado in 2003, Jeremy began his career as a designer for Communication Arts in Boulder, Colorado. During his time there he was involved in multiple large scale entertainment and retail oriented projects located around the world and learned the value of blending the disciplines of architecture, graphic design and placemaking to create truly unique projects. Jeremy opened studioJDKin the fall of 2010 to produce innovative and forward thinking design strategies that draw from architecture, environmental branding, graphic design and research that ultimately lead to differentiated, meaningful and engaging spaces.

Sarah Pirilä

Sarah Pirilä has been part of Trimble for almost 10 years focusing on improving the quality, efficiency and intelligence of content used to create Building Information Models. She joined the SketchUp team last year and is working on the 3D Warehouse Content Developer program and also collaborating within Trimble to improve the way content flows through different design phases in the AEC industry. She has a background in structural engineering and worked for Trimble Solutions (Tekla) in Finland for the past 9 years after graduating from Helsinki University of Technology with a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering.

David Zachary

David K. Zachary, PE received his bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from California State University, Chico (with an emphasis on structural engineering) and completed his post-graduate work in structural design at University of California, Davis. David has 22 years of experience as a licensed Engineer and is now licensed in six states. He has offices in Crystal Bay, Nevada (Tahoe) and Kauai. David has been creating nearly all his structural plans and details in SketchUp for the last four years. David's work is predominantly in preparing structural plans, details and calculations for large complex custom homes in Tahoe and Kauai.

Daniel Brown

Daniel Brown is the owner of SketchUpTrainer.com and db-3D.com. He has been a designer, 3D modeling specialist, and SketchUp trainer since receiving his Architecture degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2007. As a trainer, he has taught thousands of design professionals around the world. Based in Philadelphia, he teaches 2-day workshops throughout the country as well as offering online and private training courses.

Matt Chambers

Matt Chambers holds degrees in Environmental Design and Landscape Architecture from North Dakota State University as well as an MLA from the University of Minnesota. Matt is an operations and communications professional for Aldevron, a biologics manufacturing organization with locations in Fargo, Madison, and Freiburg Germany. Matt is currently managing the master planning of Aldevron's new 115,000 sf corporate headquarters. In addition to Aldevron, Matt regularly teaches architectural design courses and workshops at local universities.

Katya Kean

Katya studied Business at the University of Anchorage, Alaska and was employed as a graphic designer before becoming self-employed in 2009 as a SketchUp modeler. She currently teaches SketchUp professionally through GeniusDV, a SketchUp-certified training facility in Orlando, Florida. Her client list includes Disney World, The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Yuma International Airport, The City of Ottawa (Canada), Crown Equipment, and a multitude of independent firms and individuals. In addition to teaching monthly Florida classes, she frequently travels to teach SketchUp for companies at their own offices, and also globally teaches SketchUp online to individual students via live screen-sharing software.

Dave Cooperstein

Since joining PGAV Destinations in 1998, Dave has brought a unique sense of excitement and drama to PGAV’s creative design process. His design skills and experience range from architectural development to storytelling to theatrical scenic design. As a Senior Creative Designer, Dave is part of PGAV’s core 3D visualization team, developing new ways to explore the design process using professional 3D computer modeling software and cutting-edge video game design tools. Dave graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with his Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor Minor in Drama, and then received his Master of Architecture degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

Neal Emery

Neal Emery is a Senior Landscape Designer with Walt Disney Imagineering. He has nine years of professional experience and has been using SketchUp since 2003. His primary focus at WDI has been using technology to design, visualize, coordinate, document and implement some of the most technically challenging theme parks and resorts all over the world.

Mike Hathorn

Mike Hathorn is a history teacher evolving into a technology teacher at Hartford High School in Vermont. After teaching a fairly standard history course for 10 years, he started teaching local history through the 3D design of buildings. This led his developing a new technology program which uses SketchUp for 3D printing. Now instead of lecturing to his students, he is working alongside them while challenging his own comfort level of what the role of a teacher is. Mike is also a varsity golf coach and STEM club advisor.

Aaron Dietzen

Despite having joined the SketchUp team less than a year ago, Aaron has been an active SketchUp user for years creating everything from models for 3D printing to full construction documentation using SketchUp. At his previous job, Aaron was the Product Manager for BuildEdge, the building modeling extension for SketchUp. Aaron spends his time at SketchUp as a Sales Engineer supporting the sales staff, helping customers, and recording Skill Builder videos!

Mike Tadros

Mike Tadros is the Product Manager for 3D Warehouse and the SketchUp Mobile Viewer app. During his prior tenure as co-founder and president of Igloo Studios, Inc., Mike played an active role in helping dozens of building product manufacturers to create and publish their product catalogs to 3D Warehouse. Mike has been actively teaching AEC industry professionals to use SketchUp, LayOut and 3D Warehouse since 2005. Mike also hosted The SketchUp Show video tutorial series and is the author of Real World Google SketchUp 7 (Peachpit Press) and Remodeling with SketchUp: Measure and Draw Your Existing Space (iTunes Bookstore).

Keynote Speaker

Corey Rubadue

Corey Rubadue is the Director of Chaos Group USA. With over 20 years experience in the field of visual design, Corey has pioneered both 3D visual development and software development. With a background in architecture, Corey experienced firsthand the challenges of visual design in architecture. In 2005, Corey launched ASGVIS which first brought V-Ray for Rhino and V-Ray for SketchUp to market. The success of these products led to the acquisition of ASGVIS by Chaos Group in early 2011. Always looking to push technology to the limits, Corey dedicates every waking moment to helping clients succeed and take their businesses to the next level.

Alyson Hallander

Alyson, a structural civil engineering graduate from the Ohio State University, spent three years designing nuclear submarines before refocusing her career on sustainable building design by joining Sefaira. She taught herself SketchUp in order to qualify for the position at Sefaira and has since become an expert at modeling for performance-based design. As part of the Customer Success Team at Sefaira, she helps architects and engineers throughout the Americas use Sefaira for SketchUp to design high performing buildings in pursuit of a more sustainable built environment.

Nat Ellis

Nat Ellis is Head of 3D Visualisation at JBA, a UK-based architecture practice. Nat has extended his skills over the years from detailed CAD drafting to near photo-realistic 3D rendering using SketchUp and SU Podium. Nat has taken the lead in expanding JBA’s 3D visualisation capabilities which the office uses throughout all of it’s projects. Nat now oversees a team who produce 3D photorealistic images and 360 Panoramic's for all JBA’s clients which has become a vital part of the JBA design workflow. Nat is a qualified Senior Architectural Technician having studied at Brighton University, and has over 15 years experience on both commercial and residential projects. Nat joined JBA in 2003, in this time Nat has worked on many of JBA’s award winning projects.